Table Talk: It Goes by Fast
TABLE TALK
Table Talk is meant to help unify, clarify, and solidify the important work and culture of RCA.
IT GOES BY FAST
I’m 60 years old. I know that sounds old. It sounds old to me too. I don’t feel that old at all. But when I look at the facts – the calendar, the age of my children, the numbers of grandchildren I have (7), there is no denying that I’m old. Wait, I still run at least three times a week, and play soccer at movement time, and… (these things exhaust me!). In my daily mind-set, I’m about 35 years old. When I was young, I always thought that age 35, with two or three kids, was the ideal season of life. I remember when I was 35. We had 4 kids. Okay, we were above average, but we were living the dream. But then life flew by really fast, I mean REALLY FAST!! Don’t miss that last point. We are actually now 60 with 6 children and 7 grandkids and the work we did to raise our children is, for the most part, finished.
My wife, Dawn, and I were talking about this recently, and we realized that most of the wisdom of life is about delayed gratification. We want what we want now, but we also know that there is a long-term vision for life that may not agree with the preferences I have now. It’s basically a conflict between what I want now and what I really want in the end. Think about that. What do you want now? What do you really want in the end? How often are those the same? It’s the same with raising children. What do they want now? What do you really want in the end for your children? Are they the same? We’re absolutely shocked that we are already in the season of life where we are now: not raising children, but our children are raising their children. It makes us think a lot more about delayed gratification and the ultimate goals we had about raising our children, when what our children wanted in the moment vs. what we really wanted for them in the long term were pitted against each other.
Dawn and I are so grateful that, by God’s grace, we often made our parenting decisions based on what we really wanted, according to God’s Word, instead of what our children wanted in the moment. This is probably the greatest challenge of our lives as sinful humans: what do I really want vs. what do I want now? This is an eternal life and death decision we make every day in our parenting.
I have often, even recently, heard parents say that they don’t want to “be the bad guy” because they have to say “no” or make a difficult decision that their children will not like. But really, who is the bad guy and who is the good guy? The good guy is the parent who keeps his or her focus on the eternal values that we have been given by God to raise our children in the true faith. The bad guy is the parent who caters to the immediate whims of a child who brings virtually no wisdom or experience to the table. Our children are given parents for a reason. A Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says, God has given parents the responsibility to raise our children in the true faith in all aspects of life. We are our children’s primary disciplers.
When our oldest son was 9, I was asked to preach about being a Christian parent. As part of the sermon, I asked him to come up to the front and I picked him up and held him in my arms – which was difficult since he was quite big for his age! I said with a lot of emotion, “I’m half way through raising my son, but I’m not sure I’ve done half of what I’ve hoped to do to instill our faith into him.” I realized in front of our congregation that the time was going much faster than I expected, and that I needed to focus on the things that were most important, not on what he or I wanted in the moment. This is very difficult, but it can make all the difference.
I encourage you all to do a perspective check and consider what eternal truths you want your children to understand firmly and begin to live by before you send them into the world as adults. What are you doing to instill those truths into your children in everything you do every day (Deut. 6)? Keep your eyes on the long-term goals God has given us for our children – becoming adults who are life-long disciples of Jesus Christ – and then rally around that goal to help you make daily decisions about what you do each step along the way.
My wife, Dawn, and I were talking about this recently, and we realized that most of the wisdom of life is about delayed gratification. We want what we want now, but we also know that there is a long-term vision for life that may not agree with the preferences I have now. It’s basically a conflict between what I want now and what I really want in the end. Think about that. What do you want now? What do you really want in the end? How often are those the same? It’s the same with raising children. What do they want now? What do you really want in the end for your children? Are they the same? We’re absolutely shocked that we are already in the season of life where we are now: not raising children, but our children are raising their children. It makes us think a lot more about delayed gratification and the ultimate goals we had about raising our children, when what our children wanted in the moment vs. what we really wanted for them in the long term were pitted against each other.
Dawn and I are so grateful that, by God’s grace, we often made our parenting decisions based on what we really wanted, according to God’s Word, instead of what our children wanted in the moment. This is probably the greatest challenge of our lives as sinful humans: what do I really want vs. what do I want now? This is an eternal life and death decision we make every day in our parenting.
I have often, even recently, heard parents say that they don’t want to “be the bad guy” because they have to say “no” or make a difficult decision that their children will not like. But really, who is the bad guy and who is the good guy? The good guy is the parent who keeps his or her focus on the eternal values that we have been given by God to raise our children in the true faith. The bad guy is the parent who caters to the immediate whims of a child who brings virtually no wisdom or experience to the table. Our children are given parents for a reason. A Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says, God has given parents the responsibility to raise our children in the true faith in all aspects of life. We are our children’s primary disciplers.
When our oldest son was 9, I was asked to preach about being a Christian parent. As part of the sermon, I asked him to come up to the front and I picked him up and held him in my arms – which was difficult since he was quite big for his age! I said with a lot of emotion, “I’m half way through raising my son, but I’m not sure I’ve done half of what I’ve hoped to do to instill our faith into him.” I realized in front of our congregation that the time was going much faster than I expected, and that I needed to focus on the things that were most important, not on what he or I wanted in the moment. This is very difficult, but it can make all the difference.
I encourage you all to do a perspective check and consider what eternal truths you want your children to understand firmly and begin to live by before you send them into the world as adults. What are you doing to instill those truths into your children in everything you do every day (Deut. 6)? Keep your eyes on the long-term goals God has given us for our children – becoming adults who are life-long disciples of Jesus Christ – and then rally around that goal to help you make daily decisions about what you do each step along the way.
Recent
Archive
Categories
no categories